Disk Cleanup Just Deleted Most of my files

[firewolfsm]

I ran diskcleanup (Vista), and while cleaning some windows error logs, it started deleting all the files under users, including the desktop and my personal files. I just lost 30GB of data and didn't notice until the next song on my playlist wasn't found.

First of all, what the fuck just happened?

Second, is there any way to get it back?

 

[CalvinHobbes]

No idea what happened but you should be able to get the files back. There are a few good data recovery applications out there. GetDataBack has worked for me although I've never used it under vista.

 

[firewolfsm]

The other weird thing is that it reported the size of those error reports as 308GB...my drive is only 160GB, I checked it more our of curiosity than anything.

I am stupid, never thought of a recovery tool...for some reason, the freeware ones suck but I finally found one that can restore file structure, it's just that I have to sift through all the thousands of system files with this one.

 

[doggyfromplanetwoof]

Vista indexs your user files, somehow... They get tagged as 'removed/delete', you run disk cleanup and it removed/deleted the files that were tagged.

This is a known issues with Vista and how it indexs files with disk cleanup. You have been a victim of a bug.

DON'T USE THE DISK CLEANUP TOOL FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!

Your error reporting file is large because it's caused by Error Reporting, so disable Error Reporting. (best left disabled anyway) and check again if it still displays incorrectly.